Today's patch concludes a series of infrastructure updates on our servers and also kicks off a series of improvements to our loading performance in the online editor!

• The transfer of the website to a faster database model and a new, more performant server has already been completed in April and we can already see that loading times for your dashboard and map sections are much faster now.
• Today we have also moved your custom uploads into our new server architecture. When you upload custom assets, they are now stored in our new CDN architecture that has distributions in Europe, North America and Asia. This means that uploading and accessing your own custom assets is a lot faster than before.

We have now successfully ported all asset related backend services into our new FogMS architecture, which concludes our big infrastructure work packages that we started in 2021. 

Now, we can start to work on the final performance improvements for loading times in the editor. With over 12,000 assets throughout all content packs and marketplace items, the general loading of assets and especially the loading performance of the Asset Picker needs an overhaul to stay functional. With our structural changes implemented we now have the means to skyrocket this in the next step.

A better way to manage custom assets

Moving custom uploads into FogMS allowed us to review the way we store them for you in your cloud space. This came along with a bunch of improvements to free your space from unnecessary boundaries and should give more leeway when working with custom uploads:

• Cloning maps from other artists that include custom assets do not affect your quota anymore.
  
• Our service is now converting all images into a compressed file that takes a lot less loading time than before.
  
• To make it easier for you to understand how your custom upload cloud is organized, we have changed the rather elusive quota count to a straight forward asset count instead.
  
  Custom upload slots per user-tier:
  Free Users: 100 assets (max file size for upload 5MB - equaling 500MB)
  Premium Users: 10 000 assets (max file size for uploads 10MB - equaling 100 GB)
  CL & Lifetime Users: 50 000 assets (max file size for uploads 10MB - equaling 500 GB)

Next up will be our rework of the user interface for the asset manager.

Handling map clones that include custom uploads

Premise: Please keep in mind that you are not allowed to share maps publically if they contain assets that you do not have the legal licensing rights to distribute. Please check the licensing rights of your custom uploads, before you publish those maps to the community.

With the new community hub incoming, we expect a lot more exchange of maps between accounts. To improve the handling of such maps, we have reworked the way that we treat those maps:

When you clone a map from another artist into your account, we do not copy custom assets over to your account anymore. Instead, we create a database flag that grants you access to those custom assets while you are working on this specific map clone. The assets are not available in your asset library however, but just remain available on this map clone. This removes the unnecessary stress to your cloud quota, prevents illegal spreading of assets and allows us to manage assets more efficiently on the servers. In case the original author deletes their map, the assets remain on the servers until the last instance has been removed and there are no more cloned maps using those assets in the system.

With today’s patch we have kicked off a series of updates to our vast public library of community created maps. Over the next months we will slowly transform our public map search into a new community hub, where you can create your own profile pages, follow other artists and get improved map recommendations based on your preferences.

Along with this patch, we have also released a series of Hotfixes to the editor. You can read all the details here in our patch notes. The essentials are:

• Paths can now be added to Room and Prop Templates.
• Template placement now has proper error handling.
• Room Floor/Wall and Token Border/Background textures that are missing will be replaced with their respective default texture.
• Props, Shapes, Brushes, and with missing assets will be removed.
• Tokens with missing Token Image asset will be removed.

• Token handling for 'campaign tokens' and 'collection assets' has been updated to act the same as template placement listed above.
• Prop Tool once again remembers the last selected prop.
• Brushes in a room with the trapped flag will now render the trapped outline properly.
• Fixed various issues with the Shape Tool when using point mode.
• Shapes can now be concealed from the inspector (instead of only on creation or from the right click menu)
• The color grading panel will now be able to be properly reloaded with saved searches.
• Fixed a bug with regards to properly saving the search text for the color grading and font windows.

The new patch for Project DEIOS is being finished as we speak and will be released later this week. If you want to see what is part of the new patch, join us tomorrow in our new edition of Mapping it Out!